Mostly tech with some other bits of me

23

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here, but I’ve had a lot going on and hardly any time to write. Here are some of the things that I’ve been up to.

Shaker|LaunchHouse

This is a startup accelerator/co-working place in the Cleveland area that I’ve been frequenting over the past month. It’s been great working in an environment surrounded by innovators, entrepreneurs, and all sorts of walks of life. Everybody has a story, and each story inspires me to find my story and run with the creativity and innovation surrounding me. It’s been great to work in such a positive environment.

.NET Study Group

Sam Nasr has been running a .NET Study Group online so that we can study for Exam 70-480. I had fun leading the sessions on CSS selectors and DOM interactions. I unfortunately missed a couple because of conference calls. However, I hope to eventually catch up and get that cert.

Stir Trek (May 17)

Did I mention that I missed some study groups due to conference calls? One of the events that I help with is Stir Trek. Whether it’s making suggestions for topics & speakers or wrangling volunteers, I’m doing what I can to help make this such a great event. An event that sells out 1200 tickets in a very short period of time – a few minutes, Stir Trek is a must-see event for developers, designers, and everyone in between. About 6 hours of technical content and then private viewing of a movie coming out that day – it’s well worth it! This year’s event happened last Friday, and I’m happy to say that it seemed to be well-received. However, we’re always looking to hear feedback from those who’ve been there.

Cleveland GiveCamp (July 19 – 21)

This is another source of conference calls. Towards the middle of July, Cleveland GiveCamp will be happening at LeanDog and Burke Lakefront Airport. There’s currently a call for non-profits that’s open. You can find more at my post on Cleveland Tech Events.

Akron AITP (May 21)

This past Tuesday, I spoke to the Akron AITP group on developing for multiple platforms and included coverage of the Portable Class Library that’s in Visual Studio 2012 (and also available for Visual Studio 2010). When I was originally asked to give the topic, it was a talk I had retired and hadn’t given in a couple years. It’s good to see that the direction of technology has changed, and writing the new presentation has inspired me to take on a new personal project (once time allows).

Central Ohio .NET Developers Group (May 23)

Tonight, I’m presenting on what’s new in PowerShell 3.0 at the Central Ohio .NET Developers Group. It’s been a few years in the making in trying to get me down here to speak, so I’m really excited that everything aligned for this to happen. I had given a similar presentation at Central Ohio Day of .NET last December; however, thanks to Mom brain, I’ve misplaced my slides, which means that tonight’s presentation is a brand new deck with new demos! Did I mention that I’m excited about tonight’s talk?

Consumer Camp (August 10)

Consumer Camp is a program run by Microsoft MVPs at Microsoft Stores to promote Microsoft technologies to consumers. I’ve been working with Marques Lyon on bringing Consumer Camp to Cleveland, now that we have a Microsoft Store. Our consumer computer user group – Greater Cleveland PC Users Group – has asked me to run a Consumer Camp event for them featuring Xbox, Kinect, SkyDrive, Surface, and Windows Phone. You can bet that Xbox SmartGlass will be making an appearance, as I use it on my tablet and on my phone. Mark your calendars, as this will be happening on Saturday, August 10 at 9:30am-noon at the Beachwood, OH Microsoft Store!

That Conference (August 12 – 14)

At the request of friends, I submitted a bunch of talks to That Conference. The talk they selected is “Untying the Knots of Web Development with Internet Explorer“. When I went to the MVP Summit this past February, I learned a lot and had a change of heart with regards to Internet Explorer. I learned about a lot of non-NDA tools and tips, and I’ve already shared some of this with a user group here in Cleveland. I look forward to sharing these tips & tricks at the Kalahari in Wisconsin Dells, WI this August!

Strangeloop (September 18-20)

After the prodding of other friends, I submitted a talk to Strangeloop – a conference that covers emerging languages, concurrent and distributed systems, new database technologies, front-end web, and mobile apps. When I read about it awhile ago, it reminded me of an ACM conference I attended over a decade ago. It’s definitely a change of pace from most conferences that I attend. My talk for Strangeloop is tentatively called “Motivational WiTty Adventures in Computing“, but I’m coming up with alternative names at the request of their submission reviewers. I’ll be giving a presentation on some of the women in the history of computing and their contributions to the industry. Computing history has been the one part of history that has interested me, and I look forward to speaking on this!

One of the conferences I am looking into still is PyOhio, a Python conference with a call for speakers closing soon. I’ve also submitted a talk to Ohio Linuxfest. We’ll see where else I get accepted. I look forward to sharing my experiences and discoveries with you all at events, and I hope to see you at some of these events!